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Great episode, for one, contest episodes always are and two, Zoey is pure amazing, I love her character so far and she has only been shown twice.

The battles were impressive, Jessie's moreso than anything, in my eyes, I just thought Carnivine went really well for some reason.

One thing that is rubbing me up the wrong way is Dawn's phonecalls to her mother constantly, telling her not to worry and then her mother telling her that when she is told not to worry, she worries the most, we must have seen her say that atleast four times now.

All in all, great episode, Appealshipping is looking good from the word go, in my eyes.

I really like Zoey as a rival to Dawn because it is in contrast to Drew being mean to May at first.

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If you are one of the 30% that thinks outside the box and doesn't use ubers, copy and paste
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This was a really good episode though i didn't like Ash in a contest. He should just stick to gyms. Zoe was absolutely awesome and so was her Glameow.

Interesting mother, Dawn's. Most mothers would be frantically worried about their children when they're ten years old, with just a small penguin and a rabbit to protect themselves, but Dawn's mother seemed to want Dawn to piss off and stop calling her, even though i know it was about standing on your own two feet. Just a little aggressive. I really hate Dawn's mother though. That stupid "worry" phrase is so stupid and pathetic. Otherwise a good episode. A great new rival. I'm glad Zoe won

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Though I like Zoey, I do have an issue with her dashing Ash's contest hopes so harshly (at least it seemed harsh to me). Yes, Ash is better as a battler than a coordinator, but he was doing pretty decent. He certainly learned a lot about contests from attending so many in Hoenn and Kanto, and he did pretty well in the appeals round in both contests he participated in. Just because he didn't quite measure up in the battling part of the contest doesn't mean that he shouldn't try every now and then. Zoey was being too hard on him in that matter. At least Ash gets to try again in the Wallace Cup.

Yeah, I missed a day. Cram it, all zero of you who read these re-reviews, as I was moving back home from university and hardly had time to comment on the new episode. I'm still in the midst of unpacking, so I'm gonna keep this one a tad shorter than the norm.

I think that as a whole, AG's contests were superior to DP's, but this remains one of Diamind & Pearl's better contests. For one, the battle direction is great. Both Satoshi's and Hikari's matches are exciting to watch and epicly close, with nothing about the scoring seeming unfair. Obviously Hikari was never going to win, and they would never throw a ribbon in Satoshi's face since it's not his arc, so it was all handled well.

This is, however, the episode where Nozomi first shows her horns. It is unfortunate that her awkward resentment toward the gym/contest combination was never explained (and later dropped altogether thanks to it going nowhere), as it makes her anger even less rational here and in DP049. The fan hatred had not really picked up by this point, but it was certainly a place to fall back on when it came to character criticism regarding nosiness. Another character that rubbed me the wrong way here was Hikari's mother, whose criticism I didn't mind, but came off as forced. But while this may be a rant, it's more of an aside when looking at the overall episode, which was very good and continues to hold up in the grand scheme of DP contests.

her awkward resentment toward the gym/contest combination was never explained

It was explained in DP126
And finally someone bothered to translate it: Spoiler:- spoiler:

When they were little Suzuna decided to do battles and become a Champion, while Nozomi wanted to do Contests and become a Top Coordinator. They promised each other to only follow one path and come out on top for each. So she looked down on people who did both because to her it just looked like they were fooling around.

(and later dropped altogether thanks to it going nowhere

I guess we're supposed to see it as "resolved" rather then "dropped" since she learned she was wrong after her battles with Ash and Nando and then later at Wallace Cup admitted she was wrong and apologized to Ash
And then we got said explanation
I know it wasn't such a great way to "resolve" this but... it did get some kind of explanation (Paul's reason for his own problem isn't much more logical either) and resolution (Paul's problem is still ongoing so I guess they realized they better resolve Zoey's problem early since unlike Paul's problem, it wasn't exciting and would just make her boring if repeated again and again until Sinnoh is over)

Zoey versus Dawn, so interesting. Loved how Dawn lost her first contest like May lost hers back in Slateport City. It would have been odd for Dawn to win her first contest so easily so I'm all for her losing. It was fun but I agree that Buneary was too strong considering it had been caught just a few episodes prior to the contest. Overall though, a decent episode. 7/10.

The battle between Ash and Zoey was SOOO good. If it weren't for the time running out Aipom would have knocked out Glameow for sure. The Zoey vs. Dawn battle was great too but not as intense and I was little disappointed that Dawn lost. Zoey is an amazing coordinator and I can't wait to see how her skills have improved at the GF.

Zoey was a bit harsh on Ash, I like her but in this episode she was a bit, well annoying it's like mind your own business, it's none of your business if Ash wants to compete. What was her reaction to Nando who decided to do them both? (I don't remember if I seen them meet yet)

The battle between Ash and Zoey were pretty good, Glameow was quite good (You can't tell me she's never been in contests before, come to think of it her and Paul don't seem/aren't beginners in their things they do.) and strong with Shadow Claw. Ash might have actually won if it wasn't for the time limit though.

I thought Jessie was trying to disguise herself in that costume, so why in the heck is she sitting right next to James who is in TR costume. (And isn't that costume mostly the same that Jessie wore previously which they discovered who she was in Kanto).
You know when your Pokemon gets defeated by a single TR Pokemon then it isn't very strong is it, because TR's Pokemon always almost win (Unless they first appear on their teams they might get a couple wins).

The battle between Dawn and Zoey wasn't too bad either, I wonder if Zoey went into the Pokemon League how far would she get with that Glameow and others?

Poor Dawn losing her first contest, as I said in another contest episode she is a very different character from May who won half of her contests while Dawn lost half of hers (Yet both still made it to the GF).
I think Johanna was too harsh on her daughter, last time I checked daughters can talk to their mother about these kind of stuff, I don't think she really knows how to be a mother that well. Nor does she seem to even like being bothered (No wonder why she let Dawn go out on her own).

The battle between Zoey and Jessie was a bit too quick, and I doubt that if Dawn and Ash couldn't defeat her that Jessie could really do it.

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Skipping a fair amount of reviews to come here. Jumping from dp 6 to dp 12 (wow). But many of the episodes in between are pretty generic to me, and I don't have too many memorable scenes in them. dp 7, 9, 10 focused on Dawn and her team, with Piplup receiving an episode, Dawn catching Buneary, and then an episode where Dawn learned to connect with her pokemon. dp 8 was Brock catching Croagunk. So since dp 6 and his battle with Paul, Ash has taken a bit of a backseat in the story.

I had a review for dp 11, but unfortunately lost it (still think I can fit what I want to in here, so no problem). dp 11 was the beginning of this contest, and introduced Zoey as the cool, in control rival for Dawn (who was being "annoyingly" nervous last episode). Ash is also competing in this contest, so he does have something meaningful to do.

And he lets that be known rather quickly in this episode as he says he's aiming to win this contest and then his 1st gym badge, getting a derisive rebuke from Zoey. This is probably a good thing from Zoey's viewpoint, maybe, since it gives her some sort of character besides perfect coordinator. But the problem, or better expression may be tension killer, is that Ash doesn't really get bothered by that at all. Even when he loses to Zoey, he takes it pretty much in stride. Zoey compliments Ash's skill as a trainer right after the battle as she realizes how close she was to losing, and Ash laughs a bit sheepishly at getting a compliment (I'm sure there haven't been too many of those). The thing is, Ash understood from the beginning that his place was gym battles, and he needed to be persuaded by Dawn, Aipom, and Brock to take part in the contest in the first place. This is more Zoey's problem, and it's hard to appreciate that on a first viewing, since Zoey is so new. Even knowing Zoey's result at the grand festival and trying to understand her character as a result of that, it's still maybe pretty tough. Zoey and Ash have some interesting interactions in this series, in that Zoey freely gives her opinion of Ash while Ash doesn't seem to mind too much.

Oh yeah, this is a contest! What about Dawn? Well, predictably she loses to Zoey in the semis. I said Dawn was "annoyingly" insecure this contest, and she is. Despite her show of nerves, she expects to win, and it's hard to sympathize with that. But that does change in future contests, and that storyline is one of the real masterful ones in the general Sinnoh plot.

Finally, Zoey faces Jessie in the final. If you're watching this series for the first time, this is a bit of a filler final; there's no way Zoey can lose. And maybe in retrospect, this is still a bit of a filler final; but you definitely take Jessie much more seriously. Regardless, Zoey wins the contest for her 2nd ribbon.

Dawn's first contest was great. She was amazing, even VS Zoey, but too much inexperienced. I think they should have showed her battle VS Bidoof in the quarter final, because we haven't seen her actually winning a battle.

Not bad for the first contest of the saga. I didn't expect Dawn to win, but I did expect Ash to do better than get beaten by a Glameow, especially with a SE Focus Punch attack. Jessie making it to the finals was also unexpected, but this was actually a rather good twist, showing that she's become a more experienced trainer. And that scene where Zoey tells Ash that he can't compete in contests and gym battles, I think she needs to go tell that to Nando.

This episode was cool. Not Surprisingly, Dawn and Ash both lose in the contest. Glameow's Shadow Claw attack is very cool. Interesting how Jessie won a battle in this contest. Didn't really like how Zoey told Ash off about doing contests, and how he shouldn't do them anymore. That was very rude. Ash came very close to defeating Glameow with Aipom, but ran out of time. Zoey vs Dawn was very cool, even though Dawn lost. It's cool to see Dawn's Mother's strict side when talking to Dawn.